


Under his skin

by TetrodotoxinB



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (Not Geralt or Jaskier), Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Field medical attention, Geralt introspects, Geralt is not a doctor, I'll be honest I don't really know what to tag this, Please see end notes for further info, Rape/Non-con Elements, Whipping, Whump, Whumpee!Jaskier, domestic abuse, loss of limb, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Jaskier makes another bad choice of bed partners, except this time there are more consequences than being tossed out while still naked. Geralt tries his best to pick up the pieces and maybe learns something about himself along the way.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 99





	Under his skin

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags. For further information regarding the noncon elements, please see the end notes.

When Jaskier doesn’t reappear by nightfall Geralt assumes that the nattering bard has finally found something better to do. Or maybe someone.

Either way, it’s a relief. Geralt, despite his earlier predictions, has their room — _his_ room since he’s the one who paid the coin — all to himself. It’s the quietest night he’s had in weeks.

*****

When morning comes, Geralt makes his way down to the tavern on the first floor of the inn. Breakfast appears in front of him without him having to ask which is a blessing. But his mood quickly begins to sour as he notices two things: one, Jaskier isn’t standing on a table tormenting his lute and everyone within earshot, and two, there’s an anxious air about the place. 

Quickly, because Geralt’s learned that these moods often turn sour for him, he eats his breakfast and heads out to the stable for Roach. 

“-him bloody, they did.”

Geralt pauses in alley, waiting for the man to continue, when a second man says, “Aye, well, if it had been my wife, I’d have done more than just whip him.”

At that several others snort and laugh, sounds of agreement chorusing as Geralt pieces it all together. 

Jaskier. 

_Fuck._

*****

The mayor’s house sits on a hill overlooking a lake. Sheep graze serenely in the adjoining meadow and if not for the scent of blood — _Jaskier’s blood_ — Geralt might actually find the whole pastoral shtick peaceful, or at least not too annoying. 

Roach whickers as Geralt ties her to a post by the front walk, but a sugar cube lifted from the breakfast table appeases her, and she settles as he marches up the steps towards the front door.

Geralt indelicately bangs the knocker against the front door, an sound of the impact echoing in the foyer. Footsteps approach, scuffling softly on the stone floors, before retreating to hushed conversations. Geralt has neither time nor patience and bangs the knocker once more. Moments later the door is opened by a portly, balding man with a goiter that resembles a pig’s jowls.

“Mr. Witcher. To what do I owe the pleasure?” the man says with all the cheer of someone who’s hungover.

“Give me my bard.”

The man grimaces, and then shakes his head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Do come in, though. Breakfast is still warm. Won’t you eat?”

It’s well past the hour for breakfast for anyone with a reputable profession, but Geralt accepts the invitation in, if only to get closer to Jaskier. “I’m not hungry. Where are you keeping my bard?” 

The man sighs heavily and rings his hands as though the situation pains him. Maybe it does, but Geralt doesn’t care. “As I said, he’s not available at the moment.”

“Then make him available,” Geralt says, leaning in close. The typical reaction, a slight flinch or a step back, doesn’t come. Instead the man leans in.

“No.”

Geralt is a hairsbreadth from drawing his sword in the sunroom and decapitating the old fool when two boys, no older than six or seven, come barrelling into the room. They pause momentarily to look at Geralt, before returning to their original objective.

“Da, can we go swimming in the lake today? Please, Da?” the taller one pleads. The smaller one nods his agreement, his eyes wide and pleading. 

The bloated, old bastard nods indulgently. “Take Amos. I don’t want you boys down there alone. There are strange folk about lately.” He looks back to Geralt as he makes his point but the boys are too delighted with what their day now promises to notice, and they bound away merrily nattering to one another.

Geralt finds that even once the boys have taken their leave, he’s somewhat disinclined to slay the old man where he stands, though he hasn’t ruled it out entirely. 

The silence stretches until the pained look hospitality turns into outright anger. “If there was nothing else-”

“I’ll take that breakfast,” Geralt cuts in.

The man, who strangely has yet to introduce himself but who Geralt assumes is the mayor, grimaces in a vain attempt at a smile. “Of course, Mr. Witcher. Helena! Helena, come serve our guest.”

A servant woman in a worn gray and woad dress, clearly a castoff from the lady of the house or some other such well-to-do person, scuttles into the room and begins quietly plating up food from the buffet on the far wall.

“So what brings you to Woodhaven, Mr. Witcher?” the man asks.

“Work.”

False alarm colors the porcine mayor’s voice when he says, “Oh surely there’s nothing for you to do in our parts?” 

Plates appear in front of Geralt and his reluctant host, and he picks up the mayor’s fork — ignoring his own — and begins to eat. The mayor watches with a mixture of surprise and ire, but before he’s quite recovered Geralt liberates the mayor’s plate and begins eating it too.

“Mr. Witcher, I do not know what passes for manners where you are from, but I assure you that this is unacceptable behavior here in Woodhaven,” the man protests primly.

Geralt looks up, pausing in his eating. “Would you like your plate back?”

The man’s brow knits up as much as it can given that he has the facial structure of a bloated waterskin, and he seems somewhat startled, yet satisfied, that Geralt would offer to return the pilfered plate. “I- yes. Thank you, Mr. Witcher.” He reaches out his hand to take the plate but Geralt doesn’t move. 

“I’d like my bard back,” Geralt says simply.

The veneer of civility cracks and in an instant rage, like fire on a dry summer day, spreads red and hot over the mayor’s face. “How dare you?! How dare _he?!_ In my own home! My own bed!!! And now you think to intimidate me in my own house, the mayor of Woodhaven for Melitele’s sake! Demanding that I turn this scoundrel over to you, and for what? So you can take your whore bard and disappear as though destroying my marriage, my reputation, doesn’t have consequences?”

Geralt pushes the now empty plate away and leans back in his chair. “Your marriage and reputation are no concern of mine.”

“And now, neither is the bard!” 

Geralt sighs through his nose and stands. This time the man does take a step back but the flames of anger in his eyes don’t dim. 

“Were it not for your sons-”

The man leans forward, palms on the table. “Were it not for my sons what? You’d have killed me already?”

“Yes. But now that they’re down at the lake…” Geralt draws his sword. 

“He’s in the carriage house,” says a female voice.

Geralt turns and a woman, presumably _the_ woman in this whole mess judging by the anger and bruising on her face, is standing in the doorway to the front hall. Geralt pauses a moment and then resheaths his sword.

“Oh no, don’t stop on my account,” she mutters bitterly, but Geralt pays her no mind as he brushes past. 

Slamming the front door open, he stalks down the steps, across the verge, and towards the brick carriage house. The wind has shifted since he first arrived and the stench of blood is thicker now. 

The bay door is closed but a side door stands slightly ajar, and cautiously Geralt pushes it open. At once the smells of blood, piss, and fear assault his enhanced sense of smell.

“Jaskier?” Geralt calls.

“Geralt! Geralt!!” Jaskier’s voice is muffled, his speech unclear. There’s a strained — _pained_ — quality to it. 

Geralt rounds the carriage, following the sounds of the bard’s voice, and there’s Jaskier — naked, bloody from shoulders to thighs, still tied by the wrists to the ceiling by a joist. 

“Fuck.”

Jaskier’s feet scuffle uselessly against the cobblestone floor and Geralt draws his sword, cutting the bard down in a single stroke. Slight, at least in comparison to Geralt, he slumps weakly against the witcher’s broad chest. 

“Easy, Jaskier,” Geralt instructs softly. Putting away his blade, he hoists the limp bard over his shoulder like a sack of grain. It’s hardly delicate, but given his injuries, it’ll likely cause the least pain. 

As Geralt crosses yard, Roach begins to whinney and stamp. Geralt knows she can smell it, too, and despite everything it seems that Roach, much like Geralt, has developed a soft spot for the garrulous bard. As Geralt deposits his cargo across the saddle, Roach turns to rub her nose at Jaskier’s ankle. Weakly, Jaskier pats her flank in return and mumbles something Geralt can’t understand given the swelling in the bard’s face. 

Geralt has his attention on Jaskier — covering him with a blanket and lashing him to Roach to avoid any falls — but he hears as the front door to the manor bangs open and the rotund mayor begins stamping his way across the short-cut grass. Geralt keeps to his work, carefully but tightly securing Jaskier, ignoring the other man’s advance until he’s close enough to be a hazard with the old, worn sword that he’s carrying.

With a single swipe, Geralt disarms the mayor and with another he relives the man of his right hand. The mayor screams, staggers backward, and falls to his knees gripping the bleeding stump of his wrist. Geralt notes the wife leaning amusedly in the doorway, though she makes no move to assist her husband. 

Geralt turns back to Roach and the bloodied mess that is Jaskier and finishes his work. Behind him, the man’s screaming gives way to rage and indignity, and he spews idle threats and tired insults that Geralt’s heard a dozen times this month already. 

Satisfied with his work, though hardly so with the situation, Geralt unties Roach from the hitching post and turns back to the still spluttering man on the ground.

“You shouldn’t raise a sword if you don’t know how to use it,” Geralt comments and then turns and heads down the lane towards the main road.

*****

Woodhaven was the last town along their current road for many days. Ideally, Geralt would find somewhere to house them while Jaskier recovers, but then ideally Jaskier wouldn’t go bedding other men’s wives in their own beds. 

Geralt leads them off the main road and alongside a stream until they find a clearing, small but suitable enough to make camp. Carefully, he lays Jaskier on his side, still wrapped in the blanket, while he ties up Roach and removes her saddle and unloads the rest of their gear. 

Jaskier, for his part, doesn’t say anything beyond grumbled swearing and pained moans when Geralt puts him on the ground. The prolonged silence is more disconcerting than Geralt will admit, and he worries that maybe there’s more to Jaskier’s injuries than he’s yet seen. That fear hurries along his work as he makes camp and unpacks the necessities to tend Jaskier’s wounds. 

When Geralt finally takes stock of their supplies it’s not much: water, herbs, and bandages are all they have to work with. He’d give his last coin for a draught of ale, if only to ease Jaskier’s pain while he works, but that’s an idle fantasy. Jaskier’s wounds need to be cleaned and dressed before infection sets in, so ale or no, it has to be done now. 

Geralt settles quietly on the ground beside the bard and sets out his supplies. “Jaskier, we need to clean your wounds,” Geralt says quietly. 

Jaskier only nods mutely and Geralt takes that as permission to pull back the blanket. Before, in the carriage house, Geralt had been too concerned with their escape to assess Jaskier’s injuries. But now, with time and light, some things seem better and others worse. What Geralt had taken for no more than slight bruising and the shadows of the darkened carriage house now present as deep, livid bruises across Jaskier’s face and torso. On the other hand, it seems that the whipping, while bloody as advertised, is less brutal than the many rivulets of dried blood initially led him to believe. There are welts overlaying welts but fewer than a third of them actually broke skin, which given appearances, seems to be a boon.

Geralt moistens a cloth in the pot of creek water and begins to slowly clean the dried blood and dirt from his friend’s back. Despite his care, it only takes minutes before the bard’s chest heaves with his sobs, his hoarse cries loud in the quiet of the forest. 

Geralt’s done with Jaskier’s back and turns his attention to Jaskier’s rear, when finally Jaskier speaks.

“Please. Stop. Just for a bit,” he pleads, his voice barely a whisper.

“We’re nearly done. Be still,” Geralt says, pressing his palm against Jaskier’s flank to hold him steady.

Jaskier doesn’t protest, but the barely contained crying redoubles. Geralt knows how much pain Jaskier must be in, but it takes him a moment to realize that Jaskier’s sudden emotional outburst is about more than that. How many times, he wonders, did Jaskier ask the corpulent old mayor and his men to stop? How many times did he beg for mercy where there was none? Geralt knows the fear and the helplessness, so he does the only thing he can: he sets the rag aside.

“Easy, Jaskier. Breathe. We can take a break.”

Jaskier nods weakly and Geralt rubs small circles against Jaskier’s hip with his thumb. They sit like that for long minutes, until Jaskier’s sobs have quieted to sniffles. Geralt pats a mostly unabused section of Jaskier’s thigh and then stands.

“I need to get fresh water. I’ll be back in a moment.”

The creek isn’t far but Geralt finds it nearly a world away from where he was a moment ago. Too many times has Geralt found himself in Jaskier’s position but the thought to ask for mercy never even occurred to him. Pain, like loneliness and poverty, is just part and parcel for the life of a witcher; he could no sooner ask for a reprieve from pain than he could any other part of his role.

As he refills the small cast iron pot, he supposes that unlike Jaskier, he’s never been tended by someone who would deign to give such mercy, certainly no one with whom he felt any sort of friendship. The thought gives him pause, is that what Jaskier is to him now? Is that what he is to Jaskier? A friend? After years of ambling from town to town “witchering,” as Jaskier calls it, he supposes that they’re probably more than acquaintances now.

Geralt plods back to Jaskier’s prone form. He’s awake, his one good eye, the one not swollen entirely shut, is open and staring off across the small clearing, and his breathing is slow and even once more. Geralt knows that it won’t last.

As he situates himself on the ground behind Jaskier once more, the bard clears his throat.

“At least the worst is nearly over,” he says with forced cheer, his words slurred by the swelling of his face.

“No, the salve I have will hurt. Much more. Now be still.”

Jaskier flinches when Geralt’s hand touches his hip but Geralt ignores it, focusing instead on his work. The lashes below Jaskier’s back are fewer and farther apart and it takes much less time to clean the wounds. Jaskier is still hanging on to his control when Geralt sets the rag aside and picks up the small container of salve.

“This remedy will keep infection at bay but it hurts. Don’t try to remove it. The pain should pass quickly.”

Geralt doesn’t let Jaskier linger on the thought he knows that the promise of pain is sometimes as bad as the hurt itself. Quickly, he scoops up the thick paste with two fingers and begins pressing it into Jaskier’s wounds. Predictably, Jaskier screams. Jaskier begs and pleads for Geralt to stop, but Geralt knows that sometimes speed is the better part of mercy and tightens his grip on the writhing bard. 

Even hale, Jaskier is no match for Geralt, and weakened such as he is, it barely takes any effort at all to hold him still as he applies the rest of the remedy. Done in minutes, Geralt can plainly see that his friend, such as they apparently are, needs comforting and he places carefully loosens his grip on Jaskier’s hip, again rubbing the pad of his thumb against the unbroken skin there. Fumbling, Jaskier reaches and grabs Geralt’s hand, pulling it tight against his chest and clutching it with both hands. Geralt sighs and carefully threads his free hand through Jaskier’s filthy hair, and the injured bard leans into the touch, though his face is still creased with pain.

“The worst is passing now,” Geralt assures him. “The burn will soon fade to a pleasant warmth.”

“It’s not pleasant or warm, Geralt. It’s fucking burning me!” Jaskier grits out from between split lips.

“I said ‘soon,’” Geralt reminds him. 

Jaskier groans, his one eye pinched shut, and squeezes Geralt’s hand. Geralt uses the time to look over the rest of Jaskier’s wounds. Besides the bruising across his face and torso, only his wrists seem to be damaged, worn raw by the ropes. Carefully, Geralt catalogues all of Jaskier’s injuries so that he can keep an eye on the healing, and that’s when he notices something odd stuck to Jaskier’s skin.

At first, with the dirt, the blood, and the tears there was too much to notice every errant speck of debris. But now with the urgency of Jaskier’s injuries behind them Geralt realizes that he’s overlooked something both important and horrifying. 

Jaskier whimpers when Geralt pulls his hands away but Geralt ignores him, instead using the still damp rag to wipe at the spots on Jaskier’s face and chest. The stench of sex rises immediately and Geralt thinks he might change his mind about killing the lard-arsed mayor. He had caught a whiff of it earlier, but beneath the competing odors of blood, piss, and fear, Geralt had assumed it was just a leftover from Jaskier’s prior activities. Now, Geralt has entirely different concerns.

“Hold still,” Geralt orders, his voice no longer soft.

Jaskier flinches at the first touch and then tries to pull away but Geralt holds him steady as he tentatively examines Jaskier’s arsehole. 

“What- why- Geralt? The fuck?” Jaskier finally stammers. 

Satisfied that Jaskier isn’t hiding any serious injuries, Geralt throws a corner of the blanket over Jaskier’s exposed rear and sits back.

“I thought he might have raped you,” he explains.

“Raped me?! What- why?” Jaskier stammers, his voice high-pitched and indignant but laced with shame.

“You have spend on your face and chest. It was a reasonable assumption,” Geralt points out.

Jaskier pulls in on himself and shakes his head. “You could have just asked,” he points out quietly.

“You would have lied if he had.”

Jaskier huffs wetly. “Well he didn’t. Neither did his men. They just- they-”

“You don’t have to explain,” Geralt says softly, because honestly, Geralt already knows. He’s seen torture and abuse before, moreso than most, and he understands the ways men use humiliation to control and punish. 

Jaskier sniffles and wipes at his good eye, cursing softly when he touches his face.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier. I’ll stay with you.”

“Thank you, Geralt… I’m sorry I keep making problems.”

Geralt snorts softly. “Sleep.”

After a few minutes, Jaskier does as he’s told, seemingly unconcerned by being mostly naked in a clearing in the middle of the woods. All the same, Geralt fishes a blanket out of their things and covers Jaskier. Then he sits back, feeling the midday sun against his skin, and prepares to meditate in the rare silence. It’s easier to settle in the quiet, but Geralt finds that he very much dislikes the cost of this particular silence. He’s not sure what that says about him, but he supposes that he’ll figure it out eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> Noncon elements for which I had no idea of how to tag: Jaskier's captors ejaculate onto his face and chest. There is no contact sexual assault.


End file.
